1966
Sprite 400
The Sprite 400 is one of the most iconic caravans of all time. This caravan is particularly iconic to me because my Grandparents bought it back in 1972. For 20 years, it housed them for holidays all over Europe. It was sold just before I was born, but fate would intervene to being it back into the family…
The story of the Sprite 400 begins in 1959 with the launch of the BMC Mini. It was an overnight sensation, owing to its small size and low cost. Sprite founder Sam Alper decided that it would be a wise move to build a caravan that was capable of being towed by this tiny car. The existing 10ft long Sprite Ariel was the template, and the new model was rush-launched mid-season in 1960. Through clever engineering, they’d managed to shed 50kgs from the Ariel to bring the empty weight of the new caravan down to just 400kgs, so this is where the model got its name from.
The 400 was a big hit, not just with Mini owners but owners of small cars in general. Sprite would prove its suitability with the BMC Mini with a series of high profile publicity stunts, including a 24 hour endurance run and a quick tour of the five “capital” cities of all the countries within the United Kingdom.
The Sprite 400 was one of the most popular caravans in the world by 1966.
By the mid-1960s, the Sprite 400 was selling so well all over Europe that it gained its own dedicated factory in 1964. It set the standard for small caravans, and Sprite continued to promote it as being an ideal first caravan due to its ease of towing.
It’s in 1965 that my Grandparents first encountered the Sprite 400. They decided to hire one to take on an ambitious tour from their home in Leeds to the New Forest on the south coast of England. This is a distance of some 200 miles each way, in the days before most of the motorways had been built. Even more ambitious was the fact that this would be my Grandad’s first time towing, and he would be using his own BMC Mini for the trip…
My Grandparents hired a 1965 model and towed it behind their BMC Mini.
The trip was a success, and cemented my Grandparents’ love of caravanning. However, the next few years they’d be busy starting a family and buying their first home. Fast-forward to 1972, having just moved into their second house and now with two children aged five and three to entertain, my Grandma decided that it was time to buy a caravan of their own, and naturally, it should be a Sprite 400.
All smiles on the day that my Grandparents picked up their Sprite 400 in October 1972. They celebrated by taking it out for a picnic!
They found a secondhand one from their local dealership, Cara-Cars of Ilkley, and for £180, it was theirs. Although the Sprite was in great condition for its age, it was decided to freshen it up over the winter months. My Grandad re-painted the chassis, fitted a shagpile carpet and some extra 12v lights. My Grandma worked with her mother who had been a seamstress by profession, to create a new set of curtains. They took to the road in 1973, soon discovering the perks of caravanning with young children. Getting them out of the city for the weekend became a welcome break for my Grandparents, and they toured all over North Yorkshire and slightly further afield.
An early outing in 1973
The yellow melamine set makes its appearance. It’s still in the caravan today!
Following a few trips out, my Grandparents decided to invest in an awning for the Sprite, and bought a brand-new Danish made OBI Awning in 1974. It was nearly as expensive as the caravan again, and meant that my Grandma had to choose between having an awning or the fitted fridge that she wanted! She made-do with an orange cool box, because in those days, there was often still an “Ice Man” who came around campsites to sell you a block of ice for your cool box.
Another upgrade followed the same year in the form of a new towcar. Their Morris 1100 disgraced itself while towing them up a steep hill and it proceeded to run out of gears. My Grandad resolved the situation by leaving the rest of the family at the bottom of the hill with the heaviest items from the caravan, and towing the caravan up the hill empty and unhitching it at the top of the hill. After embarrassment all-round, the Morris was traded in for a two-year-old French Simca 1301, which would have been a rare car in Britain even in its heyday.
My Grandad maintained that an awning is the best accessory they bought.
Upgrading their towcar to a more powerful Simca 1301 gave them more freedom to roam.
With the more powerful towcar, trips got more ambitious. This included visiting as far North as the highlands of Scotland and as far south as Land’s End in Cornwall. The Sprite 400 remained a dependable little home-from-home wherever they travelled. With this confidence, they bravely decided to venture abroad with the Sprite in the late 1970s. This would start a whole new era of their caravanning activities, with my Grandad saving up all his annual leave at work for them to head off to Europe in the school holidays for weeks at a time.
A picnic on the heather moor - stopping where you like was acceptable in the 1970s!
I’m grateful that my Grandad took so many great photos of their holidays over the years.
France was the first port of call around 1978. They travelled with friends to Brittany and fell in love with touring on the Continent. Over the next few years, they’d visit France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium with their little tiny Sprite in tow.
The Sprite was a perfect little home from home all over Europe.
Holidays on the continent continued well into the 1980s, even taking my Grandma’s mother with them!
By the late 1980s, the Sprite was being used less and less as the children grew older and caravanning with their parents wasn’t cool anymore. It was relegated to the bottom of the garden, serving as a bit of a site hut while my Grandad built his own two storey house extension. In the early 1990s, the Sprite was sold to someone that my Grandad worked with called John, and they put the money towards finishing the house extension.
My Grandad built his own house extension in the 1980s, and the Sprite served as a site hut.
Eventually, after over 20 years of ownership, the 400 was sold in the early 1990s.
At this point, I enter the story. My Grandparents missed caravanning, and soon after the Sprite was gone, treated themselves to a nearly new 1988 ABI Award Dawnstar, which was the antithesis of the Sprite 400 in every way: Double glazing, hot water, a shower, full oven/cooker, fridge, mains electrics… they understandably felt like they’d won the pools moving into the ABI!
I was born a year later, and as first time Grandparents, they took me under their wing immediately and introduced me to the joys of caravanning at just a couple of weeks old. For my entire childhood, they took me everywhere they could in the caravan and we enjoyed hundreds of holidays all over Europe. As most of my Grandparents’ caravanning history at that point had taken place in their Sprite 400, they constantly relayed stories of this curvy little green caravan, which really piqued my interest in classic caravans.
Fast-forward to me passing my driving test, and I bought my first classic caravan - a 1963 Sprite Alpine - for just £60. My Grandad helped me extensively with the restoration, teaching me all his DIY skills and we styled a lot of the Alpine on his old photos of their Sprite 400.
I got my first classic caravan at the age of 18, inspired by my Grandparents’ Sprite.
My Grandad worked with me to restore it and we based its design on their old 400.
I was truly dismayed to discover hostility towards Sprite caravans on the classic caravan scene. “Cheap tat” was what one established club for historic caravans called my Sprite! I decided to take matters into my own hands and started a Facebook group called ‘Classic Sprite Caravans’, for owners of pre-1982 Sprites. I started buying up any brochures, paperwork and books I could find that contained information about Sprite caravans in them, all in an effort to help other owners and keep as many classic Sprites on the road as possible.
It was a few years later that a guy called Peter joined the group with photos of a little 1966 Sprite 400 parked behind some dustbins with the Leeds City Council logo on them. It was an awful shade of brown, but could this be my Grandparents’ Sprite?
I messaged him and asked for the serial number, then asking my Grandad if he had any paperwork with the serial number on it, as he famously never threw anything away. To my amazement, he had the original order form from when they bought it back in 1972, crucially with the serial number on it - and it was a match!
The first photo I saw of the Sprite 400 on my Facebook group.
As if the story couldn’t get any more “small world-y”, it turned out that Peter was the neighbour of John - the same guy that my Grandparents had sold the Sprite to all those years ago! He’d had another ten years or so of holidays out of the Sprite, laying it up in the garden due to a damaged suspension arm. Peter moved in and wanted a project, and bought the 400 from John and began to fix up the chassis, as he is an expert with metalwork. He started to restore the Sprite 400 but realised that he might want something bigger to take his grandchildren away in, so purchased a 1967 Sprite Alpine.
Peter graciously agreed to sell me the Sprite 400 to reunite it with its old family. This was during the pandemic in 2020, so I had to wait until August to get my hands on it finally! In a final twist of irony, the Sprite had languished all those years some two streets away from my parents’ house, hidden away in a cul-de-sac where we’d have never suspected it was located. It was an amazing day, made all the more sweet by managing to tow it over to my Grandparents’ house to reunite them with it. My Grandad was in poor health and the lockdown had advanced his dementia. It was amazing to see him come out of his shell to reminisce about the old Sprite following the penny dropping that it was HIS caravan from all those years ago.
It felt surreal to be united with the infamous Sprite 400!
My Grandparents enjoyed seeing it again in August 2020.
Sadly, my Grandad passed away before I could finish the restoration. I was devastated that he didn’t get to see it finished, but I know he was with me in spirit, as it was one of the easiest restorations I’ve ever done! It came together so quickly and without any issues, so I feel that he must have had some kind of divine intervention. Even now, I find it cathartic to use the caravan, as it’s such a positive thing towards honouring my Grandad’s legacy. I know he would be immensely proud of it, and proud of me, because he always told me so.
The Sprite took a while to restore amongst other projects and the general chaos of life trying to resume after Covid, but it was finally ready to hit the road in April 2022. It had received a full strip-down respray, new upholstery and curtains, a new-old-stock 1970s shagpile carpet in honour of the one that my Grandad fitted, new-old-stock road lights, chassis overhaul, new electrics and a lick of paint inside. But apart from that, it didn’t want for much. It was amazing how well it had survived all those years.
The Sprite was treated to a full strip-down respray in the original colours.
I even found a new-old-stock piece of hideous 1970s carpet!
I felt an immense amount of pride in the finished caravan. This felt like the missing piece of the puzzle had finally been found. All those years I had dreamt of this caravan, and here it was in my possession, being enjoyed for weekends away, just as it had been all those years ago. It’s amazing how long it’s lasted, but its simple construction and durable design means that it can constantly be repaired and renewed. I can’t see too many caravans on the market today that I think will last as well as this Sprite 400!
Throughout 2022 I continued to find more parts for the 400, including an original gas bottle clamp holder for the A-frame, more 1970s kitchenware and even a period 1970s Isabella awning, virtually identical to the one that my Grandparents bought all those years ago.
I tow the Sprite with my 1969 Rover P6 3500.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope you’ve enjoyed this story. It feels like the end of the story in a way, but my personal story with this caravan is only just beginning. I hope to maybe write a book about it one day, because there’s plenty more stories that this caravan could tell! Little family anecdotes; funny stories of children squabbling for the top bunk, mothers-in-law falling through canvas deck chairs and sheltering from biblical storms in Europe. It’s truly part of the family, and the best heirloom that I could have ever hoped for.
